Braves sweep Lions for first time in modern school history

(Franklin) — The Braves and Lady Braves varsity basketball teams both got huge home wins over Central of Carrollton Tuesday night, sweeping the Lions in both boys and girls action for the first time in modern school history.

Coach Paul Fitz-Simons and the boys team notched one of their biggest wins in several years downing the Lions 66-50.

The Braves trailed 13-10 after the first quarter but used a strong second quarter to take a four point halftime lead into the locker room.

Jordarius Foster led the Braves with 17 points Tuesday night in Franklin

Jordarius Foster led the Braves with 17 points and Jaden Moreland was stellar off the bench with 16 including nine in the final period. Darius Matthews also finished in double digits with 12.

“Make no mistake about it this was a big win for our kids tonight — but we want bigger,” said Fitz-Simons after the game. “The thing about wins like these is that the next one is bigger and the one after that is bigger. We want bigger wins in the region tournament and bigger wins in the state tournament.”

Fitz-Simons was proud of his whole team in the win that moves his squad to 3-3 on the young season. “Tonight was a team win. We have a typical Heard County team that is defined by Heard County toughness. Looking around and seeing these kids hugging each other tonight — I am proud for them.”

The win ends an eight game losing streak to Central and is only the second time the Braves have defeated their neighbors to the north. The Braves entered the game tonight with a 1-9 record all time versus the Lions.

Other top scorers included Christian Murray with seven, Kendaz Goode with six, and Dekari Brewer with five.

Senior Madison Whitehead had 14 points for the Lady Braves

Coach Helen Akins and the Lady Braves also cam away with a big win over the Lady Lions, knocking them off by a final score of 41-33.

The Lady Braves led by just a point at the half 17-16 before pulling away in the third quarter.

Senior Madison Whitehead and junior Hannah Sanders led the scoring with 14 points each and Jordan Watson added seven.

As a team, the girls shot 66 percent from the foul line. Ten of Whitehead’s 14 points came in the second half.

“We were struggling to get in sync offensively during the first half and we had too many turnovers,” said Coach Akins. “I was proud of how we came out and played a lot better in the third quarter — we did a lot better job of taking care of the basketball. We did a good job of hitting of our free throws as well.”

Like the boy’s, the win also carried historical significance for the girls who entered the game with a record of 3-11 all-time versus the Lady Lions.

All three of those wins came in the 2010-2011 season where the Lady Braves made it to the state quarterfinals.

The Braves travel to Troup County Friday night to take on the Tigers (6:00 Girls /7:30 Boys) before returning home to HHS Saturday to face Handley (1:00 Girls/ 2:30 Boys).

In the JV boy’s game Tuesday, the Braves overcame a 30-14 halftime deficit to stun the Lions 41-39.

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when I played for Heard County back in 64-67 we beat Central . If I am not mistaken . Would have to to go back to archives but I know we did for they hated our guts and I played forward and got so many points.

pretty sure back in the early 90’s we used to beat central regularly, in the Rodney Wilkerson,lamont emory,rod echols,greg nelson days – really even before them. Heard county had good basketball teams in 80’s and early to mid 90’s. Our problem was we had woodbury in our region and central of talbotton – back then I think only top 2 teams went to state. It is good to see basketball getting back on track though – good basketball is awesome to watch